Master Rosh's Expert Analysis

14.05.07

Jamie Langridge, the 2007 Bud Light USARPS champion, made use of several well-known strategies during his Final Sixteen run, but combined and utilized them in a manner uniquely his own. His style of play can best be described as "complex adaptive," as he switched effortlessly between runs of alternating and repeated throws.

In the final match between Jamie and David Borne, endurance was definitely a factor. In two of Jamie's previous Final Sixteen matches, he beat his opponents in only two sets. All of Brandon 's matches lasted an entire three sets, and he was obviously starting to tire by the time he reached the finals.

In the first set of the finals, Jamie stunned David with a quick two throw victory, with no ties. Jamie made excellent use of the Roshambollah Trap, which posits that a player will not use consecutive identical throws. Thus, after winning with scissors, Jamie threw rock, knowing that he would either tie or win. The second set started with a tied rock before David wisely played paper twice in a row, having learned his lesson in the first set. David wins this time, pushing the match into the third and deciding set. This time, the players tie with rock then scissors, noticeably affecting an already exhausted Borne. After this, Jamie uses a similar one-two punch to take David out in two throws and win the championship with a final throw of paper, a throw he had not used successfully since the round of sixteen.

Jamie showed excellent metagame awareness through his entire Final Sixteen run. Over all four of his matches, he threw rock sixteen times, as opposed to nine each for paper and scissors. This created an imbalance in his opponents' perceptions; the more he threw rock, the more his opponents tended to believe he would continue doing so. This caused his antagonists to throw more paper than usual, especially David in the final set. Aware of this, Jamie made excellent tactical use of scissors; fully 60% of Jamie's winning throws in the final match were indeed scissors.

If anything, Jamie's only real weakness is how he delivers the paper. Out of the nine papers thrown in his final four matches, Jamie only won twice, giving him a dismal win ratio of 22% with paper. He fared little better with rock, winning seven out of sixteen throws for a win ratio of 44%. His real strength is in his well-timed tactical scissors strikes; he won eight of the nine times he threw scissors in the Final Sixteen, giving him an amazing 88% win ratio when using this throw. If Jamie can maintain his scissors "edge" and shore up the problems currently affecting his paper game, his RPS potential is virtually unlimited.